REVIEW: Miitopia – Cute and slightly complex

Table of Contents

1. start the journey
2. a world of options
3. Let's all be friends!
4. To attack!
5. The world of Miitopia
6. a good adventure

Nintendo has been taking advantage of the last few years to re-release every possible game for the incredible Nintendo Switch. the ball of the time is Miitopia, originally released for the Nintendo 3DS. But if you think it's just a remaster with some additional content, you're wrong — there are now plenty of customization options and players can use some of their favorite heroes in the game. Let's see this all in parts.

start the journey

The first thing to do in the game is to assemble your character. If you have patience, you can assemble yourself, or any character of your choice, such as the Mega Manthe Sonicthe Mario and many others. Once that's done, it's time to choose your alignment, which totally affects the way you interact with other characters; among the options, there are Energetic, Cold, Stubborn and a few more. I chose to be Stubborn and, at times, my character refused help from his companions, even getting to fight with one of them because of it. Which was extremely hilarious.

After that, a light introduction to the world of Miitopia. We soon discover that there is a great evil that steals the face of miis and places them on monsters around the world. And one fine day, our hero randomly wanders around the island of Miitopia until he finds himself staring at a beautiful butterfly, which gains a beautiful pair of eyes. Then, unhinged, he starts to run, and ends up finding a small town. 

One of the features of Miitopia is to be able to assemble absolutely all the characters in the game. In the same way as the creation of our hero, here you can use codes downloaded from the internet with ready-made faces, but this service is restricted to subscribers of Nintendo's online service. However, if you want, you can use a series of pre-assembled faces.

Arriving in the city, our hero meets its residents and they are all promptly attacked by the great Dark Lord, who steals the face of several characters. A worried mother asks you to save her son, and she hands you an old locket. When trying to fulfill the mission, we ended up encountering the villain, who conjures a monster. Behold, the medallion intervenes, and a voice allows us to choose one of the available hero classes. Once the choice is made, this is how our great adventure begins.

a world of options

Em Miitopia It is possible to assemble your team the way the player decides. If the idea is to have a team of knights who destroy everyone with swords, it is possible; decide to merge with magicians, thieves, or some more unusual classes such as Head Chef ou Plant (yes, there is a class that is called that), it is also possible. I particularly enjoyed using the Thief, as he hits everyone on the screen, which is very useful in some situations. The Scientist is also very good, and a lot of fun.

Team members can be assembled any way we like, and their appearance can be as mentioned above, or any other. This is what matters the least, but the choice of classes can be a determining factor against certain enemies. As the story unfolds, we lose friends, others are made, and this is ideal for setting up new teams and testing new strategies. 

One of the novelties of the game, compared to its previous version, is the presence of makeup and wigs to customize our heroes. This is fun, but I used it very little. However, among all the things, what I liked the least about the game was the way we changed equipment. There is no shop to see the options. Characters from time to time ask for money to buy a new piece, and yet, sometimes, they end up buying a candy, which restores magic points, or a banana, which restores health points. 

Another thing that you can't control are the movements used in combat by allies, that is, they use whatever they want at their leisure. This sometimes ends up being a problem, but overall they behave well and help a lot during the fight. Along the way, we meet a very special creature: an adorable horse. He is not necessarily a playable character, but he assists us during combat, whether with special attacks or supporting us.

Let's all be friends!

One of the great bargains Miitopia is to make friends. As the characters spend time together, their affinity grows, and with that some scenes are presented, in the form of small skits. Some of them are extremely hilarious, for example, in one of the ones I witnessed, the characters give each other a little gift, the two dance and are happy. After that, a third character appears at the window and says he's jealous. Other scenes show them doing exercises etc.

As the friendship level goes up, some things are released, like a character cheering for another, or helping by hitting the opponent, or recovering the mana points of the colleague, and so on. The same goes for our little horse. As we go up in affinity with him, we can ride him, hit opponents and other things. 

But not only good things live friends. Sometimes they end up arguing and fighting, getting on bad terms with each other. Over time, the discussion passes, but it is possible to advance the process. In some situations we receive encounter coupons, which serve to solve these problems, or to increase the affinity between the characters. 

Finally, there is another coupon to be received, one for games, which allows us to spin a roulette wheel and receive one of 4 prizes, or to play Rock, Paper and Scissors, which serves to win money. I tried to understand the logic behind the games, but when I thought I was starting to understand how they work, everything changed, so I gave up and stopped playing.

To attack!

or combat of Miitopia is the classic of turn-based RPGs, that is, whoever is fastest acts first. We have the options of using common attacks, with the weapons that we buy or find along the way, or using the special abilities of each of the classes. Some of them also affect our companions, such as, for example, the Chef, who in one of his movements cooks something spicy, gives his companion to eat and then makes him breathe fire through his mouth. This slightly increases the level of conflict between them, which can lead to a fight. 

All characters can carry candies and bananas that can be used to heal themselves during fights. Depending on their friendship level, they can "steal" items from each other, and this also increases the level of conflict.

The world of Miitopia

If there is one thing that Miitopia owns, and in the mountains, they are inns. In the castle of the great villain there is an inn; in the middle of the desert, inn. It serves as our base, and it's where we control the team, whether it's watching character interactions, playing games, or buying items. 

There are a variety of locations to explore such as forests, deserts, and more. With each city we arrive, we choose the face of the local characters and so we follow the journey. What bothered me was the excess of exploration points between the locations. They're usually quick to pass, but still, it feels like they're more there to stall than get straight to the point. 

In the world there are some characters and monsters scattered around. In all regions we have readers of amiibo, which release special clothes or coupons to be used on the journey. Some of the monsters that appear on the map have functions. For example, yellow is the gold one, that is, when we defeat it, we earn a good amount of money. So just keep an eye on the map to get the best out of the situation. 

a good adventure

Miitopia It's extremely fun, and sometimes mildly frustrating. Not being able to buy the items we want whenever we want is kind of boring, and depending on the goodwill of the characters is not cool. The many points scattered around the map seem to want to increase the duration of the game even more and playing for many hours ends up becoming boring. So much so that, from time to time, the game asks if you want to take a break.

In general, Miitopia entertains, mainly because it doesn't take itself too seriously. The lack of a Spanish subtitles might put some people off, but it's still possible to have fun with the funny scenes.

The analysis of Miitopia was made with a copy provided by the company.